In most any electronic transaction, such as for example a bank transaction, a retail transaction, a data-access transaction, or the like, a user employing a computing device obtains access to some protected account or space or the like by way of entering security information into the computing device such as a user ID, a password, etc. as authentication that the user is in fact entitled to such access. Doing so by way of a keyboard or the like that is associated with the computing device is a relatively simple matter, especially if the keyboard includes the characters needed by the user to form the security information, and if the characters are available from the keyboard in a readily accessible form. However, if the characters are not available from the keyboard of the computing device, or are available from the keyboard in a form that is not readily accessible, then the process of entering such security information into the computing device can become more difficult.
One example of a computing device with a full-featured keyboard is a laptop computer or a personal computer with a generally known 100+ key keyboard that includes the English alphabet, the numbers 0-9, and many special characters such as ‘@’, ‘^’, ‘*’, ‘(‘,’)’, etc. Notably, with such a full-featured keyboard, entering text such as a password is a relatively simple matter, even when each character of entered text is obscured on an associated display of the computing device, such as is often the case when entering such password.
In contrast, one example of a computing device with a minimally-featured keyboard is a mobile device such as a cellular telephone with the numbers 0-9, the special characters ‘*’ and ‘#’, and perhaps a few other keys. Notably, with such a minimally-featured keyboard, entering text such as a password can be performed, although with some effort and in a somewhat limited manner, typically by actuating a particular number key one or more times to select a particular letter. However, when each character of entered text is obscured on an associated display of the mobile device, it has been found that employing such a method to enter a character oftentimes results in the character being entered incorrectly. Worse yet, such incorrectly entered character in a password or other security information is undetectable until access is denied based thereon.
Despite having such a minimally-featured keyboard, many if not most mobile devices such as cellular telephones are equipped with a browser or the like and the associated functionality to access information by way of an inter-computer network such as the Internet. Likewise, many if not most users of such mobile devices do in fact employ such mobile devices to access such information by way of the Internet or the like. However, users of such mobile devices with such minimally-featured keyboards do not normally experience optimal satisfaction results when using such minimally-featured keyboards to access protected web sites. As was set forth above, such users are not satisfied when entering text including obscured text such as a password, for the reason that entering such text by way of the minimally-featured keyboard has been found to be cumbersome, and often results in improperly entered text.
Accordingly, a need exists for systems and methods for accurately entering security-related and non-security-related text into a field within a browser or the like on a mobile device such as a cellular telephone or the like by way of a minimally-featured keyboard associated with the mobile device. More particularly, a need exists for such systems and methods that employ a software application in connection with the browser to allow a user to accurately select each character of text to be entered into the field, and to display the character to the user prior to selection of such character by such user.